


Progression (Years 25, 26)

by Squintern



Series: Sleepless Nights [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Family Feels, Growing Old, MORE rambling conversations, Mortal Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Multi, Post-Canon, Team as Family, and then putting it here for the validation of my peers, no beta we dont die, still just letting my brain do its thang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-04
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:02:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29848839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squintern/pseuds/Squintern
Summary: Best case scenario, you keep running jobs with us for a few more years until you finally admit your failing stamina is too much of a hindrance in the field and gracefully live out the rest of your life waiting for us to come home___Or, three conversations about acceptance.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nile Freeman & Andy | Andromache of Scythia, Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genoa
Series: Sleepless Nights [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181561
Comments: 25
Kudos: 58





	1. Nile & Andy

**Author's Note:**

> So actually this first conversation with Andy and Nile is where this whole series began. Like I said in the last part, this series became something I used to help cope with a recent loss and it all started here.
> 
> Can be read as a stand-alone, but I recommend reading the parts of this series in order.

It’s not exactly dark here by the sea. The moon is nearly full — two days to go, Nile checked — and reflecting on the calm water. Even at night, there’s plenty of light to see by. They’re all supposed to sequestered up in the safe house, or what’s currently passing for a house but is really just a single room with an icebox in one corner and a beat up couch sagging sadly in another. After the last job, they agreed it was safer to stay indoors for a while, no matter how stir crazy they all went living literally on top of each other. There’s a heap of blankets on the floor and couch now where Nile and Andy were, and Nicky’s undoubtedly awake and listening for them to return. He’ll probably wake Joe and come out to get them if they’re gone too long, but he still pretended to sleep when Nile slipped out after Andy.

Andy’s flat on her back just beyond the lick of the waves. She’s got one hand tucked up behind her head, the other trails a line through the sand at her side. She’ll probably spend the entire day complaining about her back aching as if they didn’t all insist she take the couch (though the couch can’t possibly be much more of an improvement with the way it’s nearly collapsing in on itself). For now, she’s watching the stars. Nile shuffles up beside her, being as loud as she can in case Andy wants to send her away before she even sits down. Andy doesn’t and Nile tucks her knees up under her own chin next to Andy’s thighs. They’re quiet for a while, just listening to the wash of the ocean against the beach.

“How much longer do you think I have?” Andy finally asks. There’s less and less pretending they can do. Andy couldn’t lead this job, running out of breath far more quickly than she used to. Joe had taken point with Nicky bringing up the rear. None of them talked about how often Joe and Nile had checked over their shoulders to see Nicky propping Andy up several meters further back than was strictly safe. (Joe had been absolutely radiating nervous energy the entire time; for all that he was relentlessly concentrated on the task at hand, Nile knows he couldn’t focus all his energy on the job with Andy falling behind and Nicky at her side.)

“You’re more recently mortal,” Andy continues, “you’ve seen people get old more recently than we have. How much longer, do you think, before I can’t stand without aching, or before my eyesight starts to go, or before I can’t hear you guys in the next room over?” For someone who hasn’t seen people age recently, she certainly has a grasp on what’s coming. There are wrinkles actually deepening the creases of her face now and Nile suspects all three of those things are already happening.

“Maybe ten, twenty years,” Nile says, shrugging a little. “My grandmother rode a motorcycle until she was 87. My grandfather was in a wheelchair by 71. It’s hard to pin down.” She knows there’s a reason Andy is asking her, beyond just the most recently mortal thing.

Nicky is the picture of understanding, steady and deliberate as always. He’s patient and level-headed at every step, gentle in how he coaxes Andy to relax her body in ways she still hasn’t gotten used to after so many millennia of bouncing back. Nile knows he’s the one who’s been casually leaving printouts lying around and walking away from the laptop with websites open detailing the newest technologies available to slow certain steps in the aging process. (It’s comforting to see that the flurried burst of advancement Nile had been used to from her own childhood hasn't waned yet.) But sometimes his endless well of unflappable kindness can get suffocating, and he makes himself scarce when Andy looks ready to rip his throat out because he knows this, but he hasn’t yet figured out how to  _ not _ be gentle. Nile wonders if he’ll make it there before the end.

Joe, on the other hand, is in denial. Or, at least, doing an admirable job of acting like he is. When he’s not taking point on their jobs, an ever more frequent occurrence, he’s completely ignoring that anything is out of the ordinary. He’s cheerful as ever, always going for a laugh out of all of them, but Nile can see the cracks in the foundation. (She’s gotten to know them well enough now to see the way Joe fakes his smiles, and the way Nicky watches him like something is going to snap sooner rather than later.) Where Nicky’s softness can sometimes get suffocating, Joe’s optimism is almost always exhausting now. They can’t pretend everything’s just the same as always, and even if Andy said this changes nothing, the change is becoming too obvious to ignore now. It wears on all of them that Joe refuses to acknowledge it.

So Andy is here with Nile. Because Nile is just as scared as the others, just as unsure, but she didn’t have an unbreakable Andy for 900 years. She had an unbreakable Andy for barely more than a day (and she’s worked out by now that she was the very last person to wound Andy in her immortal state). Her reality is Andy getting older, Andy spending the necessary weeks to recover from stray bullets, Andy slowing down. She takes it in stride just like she might’ve taken her mother’s aging in stride, an expected, inevitable normalcy.

They’re quiet for a bit and Nile wonders if she should offer to help Andy sit up. Andy’s still too proud to ask on her own, but she’s begun to take the help more readily. So far, Nile seems to be the only one who’s found the balance of when to offer and when to just wait. (Nicky offers every time, but has the decency to look chagrined when Andy snaps at him; Joe almost never offers, even though they can all see how he wants to.) In the end, she just keeps talking.

“A healthy diet and regular exercise can keep your body going for years,” she says. “As long as everything remains in working condition, you might be able to move around on your own for another twenty years, thirty or forty, even, depending on how old you were when you first died and whether or not our bodies suffer long term effects from all the breaking and healing. And they might be annoying, but you can get glasses for your eyesight. Regular appointments will keep them up to date and you’ll be able to see clearly still for several years. Hearing aids these days are getting better and better, too. Most are barely noticeable anymore and the controls are more accessible than ever. There’s ways around these things.

“They’re band-aids, though,” Nile admits. “You won’t go on forever. And that’s not taking into consideration your mind. Best case scenario, you keep running jobs with us for a few more years until you finally admit your failing stamina is too much of a hindrance in the field and gracefully live out the rest of your life waiting for us to come home.”

“Worst case, I take a stray bullet and put all of us out of our misery,” Andy mutters. It feels like ice water down her spine anytime Andy says something like that, but Nile’s gotten good at suppressing the shiver. This may be normal to her, but hearing Andy’s nonchalance, and thinking about losing her so quickly, still makes Nile’s heart race sickeningly.

“Nah,” she replies instead of scolding like Nicky or going silent and suddenly dark like Joe, “you’re too proud to let some baby take you down. I mean, imagine  _ I _ put a bullet in you. How fucking sad would that be?” Andy snorts.

“Pretty fucking sad,” she agrees.

They’re silent again. The tide slips infinitesimally further away.

“I’m not ready to go,” Andy says finally. “It’s a sort of novel experience and all, and it’s not so bad right now. But I’m not ready to just… leave.” She shifts in the sand and Nile offers her the crook of her elbow. Andy grasps it and levers herself up.

“I thought I wanted to end it, you know?” she continues once she’s caught her breath. “I was just so fucking tired, so over it. I didn’t really think about leaving them.” She nods back to the house. Nile looks over her shoulder. Nicky and Joe are sitting on the step watching them. They’re too far away to really see clearly, but Nile knows that Joe is drifting off on Nicky’s shoulder and jerking awake every time his head slumps forward while Nicky just holds still as a statue and waits them out.

“I know you want to keep fighting to the very end,” Nile says, “but if you want as much time as possible with them, you’re going to have to stop. Grandma fought to keep her license for years, but she quit riding bikes when Mom broke down in tears and begged her to stop tempting fate. Some sacrifices are worth it to stay with your family.”

“I want to last long enough for Nicky to prank me again,” Andy murmurs. “Shit, kid, you don’t even know them. You don’t know how Nicky likes to just pick some corner to go all sniper in and wait until everyone practically forgets he’s there before purposefully dropping something heavy. He used to sneak up on me. I caught him a lot, but the times when he got me… you’ve never really heard him laugh, Nile, not like he does then.”

“He’s probably scared he’ll give you a heart attack,” Nile says. Andy laughs wetly.

“Meanwhile he should be pressing his advantage,” she says. “My hearing isn’t going to get better.” Nile leans her shoulder into Andy’s side.

“What about Joe?” she prompts. Andy shudders out a sigh.

“I want to see Joe soft again,” she says. “After particularly grueling jobs, after Nicky dies one too many times or just a little too violently, or when he’s just as fucking worn out by all these centuries as the rest of us, he gets just…  _ soft _ . Goes a bit fuzzy at the edges, dims and fades a bit. He’s been keeping it together for you, I know he has, and,” she breaks off with a slightly frustrated noise, “you don’t know, Nile. I hate that you don’t know. The times when he doesn’t even try to, when he just lets everything go, but not just around Nicky, around all of us. It’s all quiet murmurs and gentle little touches and, and  _ softness _ . I just want him to let go. I want to catch him, just one more time.” Nile blinks away tears.

“I want to see those things, too,” she says. Andy sags against her a little more.

“You will, kid,” she promises. “In time, you will.” The moon sinks lower in the sky. Nicky and Joe haven’t moved.

“I want to see Booker again,” Andy whispers. “And Quynh.” Nile sniffs, wonders if she should finally tell them that she isn’t drowning in her dreams anymore.

“If you’re willing to entertain religion again, there’s maybe some sort of afterlife where you won’t be alone,” Nile says after a while. Andy squeezes her arm a little.

“Yeah,” she says. “See my sisters again. My mother… Lykon. Nice to imagine.”

“And they’d get there, too,” Nile says. “Eventually.” Andy turns to look over her shoulder finally and she smiles a little. She shifts again and withdraws her hand from Nile’s elbow. Nile takes the cue and stands. Andy pushes herself to her feet.

Nile turns to head back up to the house. Nicky is on his feet, mostly holding Joe upright but looking like he’ll drop him to come help Andy if she seems like she’ll need it. Andy catches Nile’s arm and Nile looks at her. Her eyes are fixed on Nicky, so mournful it hurts, but she tears her gaze off him to look Nile in the eye.

“It’s you, too, you know,” she says. “I don’t want to leave you either. I want to last long enough to know you like I know them. I want to have something more to miss when I go.” The tears threatening to fall all night finally escape and Nile tries to smile shakily. Andy smiles back. “They probably tell you this all the time, but you  _ are _ family, Nile. And I fucking hate that this was supposed to be the option of not seeing your family die so soon.” 

Nile doesn’t hesitate. She wraps her arms around Andy’s shoulders and pulls her in close. Andy is still strong and warm and undeniably alive as she curls her arms around Nile and holds on. Nile shakes a little and Andy still holds her up.

“In the morning,” Andy says in her ear, “we can talk about my options on the sidelines. I can’t be useless.”

“You won’t be,” Nile says fiercely, “not ever.” Andy nods at lets her go, stepping back to look her over. She squeezes Nile’s shoulder and leans in to press a kiss to her forehead.

“I love you, kid,” she says.

Something in Nile settles. She didn't need the confirmation, but hearing it from Andy is a balm to something she hadn’t known was burning. She knows it won’t be the last time, not now that Andy’s thinking about it. Andy will want them all to know. Nile will talk to Nicky and Joe, on their own, maybe help them see. There is a joy in this mourning, the quiet peace that comes with knowing you’ll be together until the very end. Grief is no place for regrets, and Nile won’t let any of her family carry more of those than necessary.

“I love you, too, Andy,” she says softly. Andy smiles.


	2. Nile & Nicky

It’s fucking cold. It’s the middle of winter in Switzerland and for all that the chocolate was a good reward for a job well done, Nile doesn’t think it’s worth it. She’s been spoiled with warm, balmy climates, she’s not used to the cold anymore. She and Joe went out in the afternoon and got heated blankets, along with all their necessities to hunker down after a job, but even that isn’t enough. She rolls out of bed and is digging through her bag for another sweater when the window in the hall opens. It creaks loudly, then, after a minute or so, shuts with a bang. Nile grabs her jacket instead and peeks out into the hall.

The window sticks when she pushes it up to look out. The tiny strip of concrete that doesn’t even count as a balcony has some footprints in it and the snow on the railing has been disturbed too. Nile doesn’t have to guess who’s out there. She goes back to her room and pulls on some proper shoes, stuffing her impulse buy into the pocket of her coat. It takes a short mental pep talk, because even if she can’t die permanently, slipping off a railing and falling three stories isn’t overly dignified, but she eventually manages to get her foot on the railing and boost herself up.

“Got you something,” she says, climbing up onto the roof next to Nicky. Nicky looks over and catches the pack of cigarettes she tosses to him. He smiles and opens the blanket he’s wrapped in. She curls under his arm and burrows into his side. She produces a lighter for him, then takes over holding the corners together around them both while he lights his cigarette.

“You’re here to talk to me about what Andy said to you,” he says after the first drag. It was months ago now, but of course Nicky remembers. Of course he noticed the shift.

“She’s not going to break,” Nile says. “You know she’s still got years left in her.” Nicky nods a little, looking out across the mountains in front of them.

“It’s not the same,” Nicky says.

“I know,” Nile murmurs.

“No,” Nicky says, not unkindly, “you don’t. Joe and I came into this surrounded by death. We were born of a different sort of war than you were, war that had to be meted out so close you could feel your enemy’s dying breath on your lips. Death was such an ugly thing to us. It was early, if it came naturally, or it was bloody. And with so much violence around us… well, it gets to a point that you forget dying can be graceful. That it can take time.” He cuts off, bringing the cigarette back to his mouth. Nile waits him out. The wind stirs and snow begins to drift around them. Nile curls in closer and Nicky shifts until she’s half in his lap beneath the blanket.

“I don’t know what to do with those years,” he finally says. Nile lets her head rest against his shoulder, tucking into the curve of his neck. Nicky takes a drag of his cigarette and breathes out over her head. She doesn’t have it in her to complain about getting smoke in her hair.

“You treat them like any other year,” she says. “That’s all she really wants.”

“Easier said than done,” Nicky admits. They fall silent again as the snow falls.

“How come you’ve never pranked me?” Nile asks after a while. Nicky makes a questioning noise.

“Andy told me how you like to sit in the corner until no one notices you and then scare everyone,” she says. He huffs a slight laugh. “And you used to sneak up on her.”

“Try,” he says. “I used to  _ try  _ to sneak up on her.”

“She says you got her sometimes,” Nile says.

“She’s being very generous. I’ve maybe succeeded a handful of times in our thousand years together,” he says.

“Regardless, you don’t do that to me,” Nile says.

“I like you more,” Nicky says. Nile snorts and she can feel Nicky’s smile when he presses a kiss to her head.

“I suppose it hasn’t occurred to me,” he continues. “Everything has changed so quickly.”

“Do you know it’s been over twenty years?” Nile says. “Andy still says I know so little about you and Joe. Like how you like to prank people.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Nicky muses. “I’m sorry. We don’t mean to keep anything from you.”

“I know,” Nile says. “We have time.”

“We do.”

“Andy doesn’t,” she reminds him. Nicky pinches off the end of his cigarette and pulls both hands back under the blanket. Nile yelps as he tucks them between their bodies. Nicky is unrepentant.

“I’m just saying you should try,” Nile says. “You can’t tell me this is how you want it to be for the next twenty, thirty, forty years.”

“It’s not,” he agrees. “I want things to go back to normal. Whatever our normal is. However close we can get without…” Nile nods. Unfortunately, there’s little they can change about that one.

“It won’t happen overnight,” Nile says. “None of us are going to just forget suddenly. But you don’t have to treat her like glass. At least not until she’s at a point where her hip might break if she sits down wrong.” Nicky stiffens and Nile winces. She is used to joking about how age slowly chips away at the body. Her grandfather always bemoaned his aching fingers so that Nile or her brother would push his wheelchair on walks, until they figured out his hands were perfectly fine and he just didn’t want to do any work. (He got a motorized chair a few years later, too, and the excuse didn’t quite work anymore.)

“Sorry,” she says. Nicky shakes his head.

“Don’t be,” he says. “For once it seems you’re more well adjusted about this than we are.”

“It’ll always be this way, won’t it?” Nile realizes. “That the oldest are more accustomed to life and the youngest more accustomed to death.

“I mean I’ll reach that point, won’t I? When all I’ve ever known is you and Joe and Booker being endless and when one of you starts to go, it’ll be whoever we pick up next who reminds me what death looks like.”

“I’m afraid so,” Nicky murmurs. Nile blinks away tears, swallowing around the lump in her throat.

“You’re scared to lose her,” Nile whispers, a new understanding arising with her epiphany. Nicky is quiet for a time. When he does respond, his voice has gone thick.

“Very much,” he says. “Joe and I are the endless ones now, the eldest. Unless we find Quynh.” Nile turns to hide her face in Nicky’s neck. She doesn’t know why she won’t just tell them, but a few days has turned to a few years has turned to a few decades and it seems very late to tell them now that Quynh is back on land, gaining her footing.

“I don’t know how to think of myself that way,” Nicky continues. “Once we are the eldest it’s like a timer starts. In earnest, I mean, because any of us could be next. But we cannot pretend we’re near new anymore. I fear losing Andy, I fear the start of that timer.” He finishes in barely more than a whisper, “I fear my timer will not match Joe’s.”

It’s more than just mourning, of course it is. Nile isn’t sure why she thought it would be so simple. The implications of Andy’s death weigh much more heavily on Nicky and Joe. Nile will lose a mentor, a friend, a family member, and a leader. Nicky and Joe will lose their sense of place in the world, on top of all that. So this is what Nicky does. He controls what he can. He has a hand in keeping Andy around, alive and whole and pain-free, so that is what he leans into. And his concept of how long he will do that is so skewed he cannot fathom  _ not  _ doing so. Nile aches at the realization. She is determined, still, to help.

“You can’t change any of those things,” she points out, because Nicky responds best to blunt honesty, the sort he will deal out without hesitation. “Whatever happens, happens. But you can change how you are with Andy. You can change it  _ back _ .” Nicky lays another kiss on her hair, but doesn’t say anything yet.

The snow has begun to stick to the roof and their blanket is growing damp. It’s been uncomfortably cold since Nile climbed up here, but she refuses to leave Nicky’s side. He shivers, though, and goosebumps are breaking out across his skin. She’s about to suggest they go in when Joe sticks his head out the window.

“Nicolò, you will freeze to death out here and I will laugh heartily when you slide right off the roof,” he calls.

“Not an ounce of worry for the love of your life?” Nicky calls back. “You wound me so.”

“And  _ you _ left the window in the hall open so that I would join you in your chilly demise,” Joe says accusingly.

“Actually that was me,” Nile admits, cringing into Nicky’s arms.

“Nile,” Nicky scolds, “to think I shared my blanket with you. You have caused my Yusuf to  _ freeze _ .”

“Don’t you blame her!” Joe says. “If  _ you _ didn’t crawl out of bed and go up to the roof in the middle of winter, we could both still be perfectly warm in our lovely,  _ heated _ room. Now both of you get down here and come inside.” Nicky doesn’t move right away, instead pulling Nile into a proper hug. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, just for her. “You’re just what I need sometimes.” She smiles, wrapping her arms around his middle.

“I love you,” she says simply. Nicky whispers it back and holds her even closer and a bloom of warmth curls in her core that has nothing to do with the blanket. After a final squeeze, though, Nicky nudges her out of his lap and they both scramble down off the roof and into the house. It takes less than a minute, but Nile’s teeth are chattering by the time her feet hit the hall carpet. Joe pointedly shuts the window once they’re both inside.

“Sorry, Joe,” Nile says, pecking his cheek.

“Not your fault at all,” he soothes. He kisses her forehead in return then turns her to her room. “Sleep well.” As she slips down the hall to her bedroom she hears Joe continue in a lower voice to Nicky, “As for you, so-called love of my life, I was promised—”

She closes the door on the tail end of the statement, not at all wanting to know what was promised between them to keep warm.


	3. Nile & Joe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I said each of these parts has one chapter that I struggled a little more with? Well here we at, the one I struggled with in this part. I couldn't find enough resonance in myself when I tried to write out some of the feelings in this one, so it just didn't turn out as well as I think I could've done if I was in a different sort of place when I wrote this. I am still proud of it, though, so I didn't want to edit away some parts that I really liked.

Nile hasn’t been this intimidated by Joe in years. From the start, Joe was always the least intimidating. Compared to Booker’s surliness and Nicky’s quiet intensity and Andy’s  _ everything _ , Joe was the easiest to talk to. He always went out of his way to make sure Nile was included and offered an ear whenever she needed to talk. But seeing him now, back to the house without a book or pencil in hand, Nile’s suddenly struck with a sort of anxiety she’s never felt around him. He’s heard her, though, and she’s not so much of a coward that she’ll just run right back into the house.

“Here to talk about Andy?” Joe asks. Nile stomps down some of the tall grass beside him and sits.

“I’d ask how you knew, but I’m sure Nicky’s already shared our conversation,” she says.

“Yeah,” Joe says, “stop buying him cigarettes, by the way. He knows I don’t like the taste and I don’t want to have to be angry with you for enabling him. He can enable himself just fine.” Nile smiles a little.

“You’re just mad I don’t buy you things,” she says.

“That, too,” Joe agrees. He puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side. “So, does Andy know you’re here spilling the beans to us about things you two talked about in private?”

“She’s old, not stupid,” Nile says. Joe exhales what might be a laugh.

“I know,” he says. “I know I haven’t been handling it well. Nicky and I have fought about it already. But I don’t know how to stop.”

“Pretty sure you stop by actually turning around and facing what’s coming,” Nile says. “It kind of seems like you’re just running away.” Joe sighs and she feels him nod a little.

“I suppose I am,” he says. He brushes his hand through the grass, catching a blade in his fingers and pulling savagely. It comes free in a bundle of roots and dirt.

“It’s,” he starts, then pauses. Nile turns to look at him. The muscle in his jaw ticks. He finally continues, “it’s stupid to say that it’s not fair. She’s lived  _ so _ long already. And we’ve been fortunate to have had her for as long as we did. But  _ fuck _ if it doesn’t feel unfair.” Nile frowns a little and Joe catches the look.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he says.

“Like what?” Nile says quickly, trying to make her expression as neutral as possible. Joe rubs his free hand over his face.

“Like you’re disappointed in me for saying that,” he says. “Nicky’s already had his say on that one. I don’t need it from you, too.”

“I’m not,” she tells him, “at all. I swear. I mean, if anyone is going to agree that it’s unfair it’s gonna be me. I  _ didn’t _ get to have her as long as you and Nicky did.” Joe sighs and drops his hand.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to snap at you. I’m not angry at you.”

“I know,” Nile promises. She reaches up and squeezes the hand he’s got around her. “It’s okay to be angry. Normal, I hear.” Joe huffs a humorless laugh.

“I hear that, too,” he mutters.

Around them, a breeze pushes through the long grass. The sweet scent of wildflowers swirls past. Nile had never really understood the phrase “rolling fields” until they came out to this safe house. She’s spent hours staring out at these fields just watching the grass wave in the wind. Sitting among it makes her feel rather small.

“You and Nicky fight quietly,” she says after a long time. Joe snorts, the loudest he’s been since she’s sat. She jumps and he squeezes her shoulder in apology.

“Just where do you think we go when we go for a drive?” he asks. Honestly, Nile thought they were going to find some place to screw in private since the safe house had only one bed and no doors to close between rooms. She shrugs a little instead of telling him that. He guesses anyway and he’s smiling just a little when she looks over.

“Well, maybe there’s a little of that, too,” he says, “depending on how the fight shakes down. But we prefer to yell at each other without having the whole house hear. Particularly if we’re arguing about one of its inhabitants.”

“Makes sense,” Nile murmurs. She frowns, remembering the way they occasionally came back from their drives with grass stains on their clothes and dirt in their hair. “Do you—” she cuts off.

“It’s okay,” Joe says. “Ask me.”

“Do you guys, like, actually fight?” she asks. Joe strokes his thumb over the slope of her shoulder.

“Sometimes,” he admits. “Sometimes we use our swords, sometimes we end up just wrestling each other into admitting what’s really wrong.” Joe glances over at her and presses a kiss to her temple.

“Please don’t worry too much, I promise we don’t actually injure each other,” he says. “Even if I didn’t absolutely detest even the idea of truly hurting Nicky, and he’s the same of course, we’ve fought each other so many times that it’s very difficult to land a blow. It’s usually just about the physical exertion. I mean, I’m sure you fought with your brother.”

Nile nods, conceding his point. She and her brother had given each other multiple small lacerations over the years. He was a biter and Nile used her nails. There was one memorable fight when they both ended up with bloody noses. Their mother had grounded them for weeks.

“I guess it’s just weird to think about. I never even see you two disagree,” she says.

“That would be because you’re not looking for it,” Joe says, matter-of-factly. Nile raises an eyebrow. Joe smiles a little. “We disagreed over dinner just last night.” She thinks back, the way Joe had muttered something in that incomprehensible language only he and Nicky share and Nicky had just placed a hand on his side as he moved past him to get plates.

“What was I supposed to see?” she asks.

“He pinched me!” Joe says. There’s a small flair of dramatics to it and Nile smiles. He’s coming back to himself.

“What did you say to him?” Nile challenges. Joe rolls his eyes skyward.

“I simply said that it smelled rather light on the paprika,” he says.

“Oh, yeah, pinching was totally uncalled for,” Nile says. “You were right.”

“ _ Thank you, _ ” Joe says, nodding. “I’m telling him you said that.” Nile laughs a little.

“As long as he won’t pull his sword on me,” she says. Joe jostles her a little.

“You know he would never,” he says. Nile nods.

“Good,” she says. Joe goes back to stroking along her shoulder and the wind curls around them again.

“I know I shouldn’t say,” he says quietly, “because Andy’s made it clear she doesn’t want it. But she should get more time.” He sounds weary instead of defensive.

Because there it is. The root of this anger. Nile knows Andy’s philosophy has always been that time left behind the most jagged edges to catch on the vulnerable parts of the soul, but she stands by her own assessment more and more as the years wear on. It’s what time steals that hurts the most. And this time it’s stealing Andy. Nile swallows around her own tight throat.

“You can’t force the universe to give her more by pretending she’s not running out,” she points out. Joe’s jaw ticks again, but she watches him deliberately unclench.

“I know,” he says. “But she  _ is _ running out, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Or fix it. Or make it any more fair that she can’t…” he casts about for a moment. “She should be able to see Booker again. Or find Quynh.” Nile swallows again.

“Or have Nicky prank her,” she says quietly. Joe looks at her. “Or see you let go.” His face softens and she can see tears shimmer in his eyes.

“You’re right, there’s nothing we can do to change her situation,” Nile says, still so quiet, “we’ll never be able to change that she only gets a few decades with me, or that she won’t last a hundred years. But you and Nicky…”

“I know,” Joe says, just as softly. “That’s just about what Nicky said.” He leans in to kiss her temple again.

“You have to let go sometime, Joe,” Nile says. Joe sighs out, pressing his forehead to the side of hers. “Andy will catch you.”

“She will,” he agrees. A tear drops on Nile’s shoulder. Joe sits up and wipes his eyes with his free hand. “We will find a way to accept this. She’s the one who said this changes nothing. We’re the ones not following orders.” He sniffs a little.

“There is still time,” Nile says. Joe nods.

They sit quietly for a while longer, the wind rustling around them. Nile scoots in closer and rests her head against his shoulder. Joe tears up a few more pieces of grass. Eventually, he stands and offers a hand to pull Nile up. She takes it and follows the motion straight through to a proper hug. Joe gives the absolute best hugs.

They part and Joe offers her his arm to walk back up to the house. She hooks hers through and they make their trek back through the long grass. It’s still dark inside, but Nile left the flickering bulb over the back door on and the sight is warm and welcoming as they approach. Just as they step onto the porch Joe speaks again.

“I’ll never think it’s fair,” he says. Nile turns back, one step above him. Their eyes are level this way.

“I’ll never disagree,” she says. Joe nods a little.

Nile offers him a sad little smile and he returns it. She takes his hand and heads inside. He squeezes hers for just a moment before going over to the narrow cot he and Nicky somehow still share. Nicky curls automatically into Joe’s arms and Nile hears the barest whisper between them as she settles on to her own cot. Joe and Nicky let out slow, contented breaths at the same time and Nile smiles.


End file.
